Have you ever thought of what superior proxy types are? Experts forecast that global data creation will be over 180 zettabytes by 2025. Businesses use this information to make important decisions related to marketing, customer care, and more.
But this information is useless unless you can gather relevant data. That’s where proxy servers come in. A proxy server acts as an intermediate to connect networks. It masks your IP address to conceal your location from the destination server.
Some popular proxies for public data gathering include SOCKS5, rotating, and HTTPS proxies. Let’s learn more about them.
How Are Superior Proxy Types Used in Data Gathering?
Proxies help data collectors bypass restrictions and get information from multiple sources quickly. Think of the proxy as an intermediary between the online resource or website you want to collect data from and your computer.
When you send a request to the website’s server, the proxy hides your IP address. It helps you collect information anonymously without revealing your identity or location.
Proxies also help you bypass geographical restrictions. For instance, if a website is only accessible in the US and you live in France, you can use a US proxy to collect data from your desired website.
Top 3 Superior Proxy Types for Data Gathering
Proxies can be categorized by price, direction, source, rotation, protocol, and other features. Needless to say, there are many types of proxies. But these three are the best for intensive data collection.
SOCKS5 Proxies
SOCKS5 proxies operate over the TCP (Transmission Control Protocol) internet protocol. These proxies offer more security compared to conventional proxies. Although their mainstream use is data gathering, they are also helpful for live calls and video streaming.
What Makes SOCKS5 Proxies Suitable for Data Gathering?
The following features of SOCKS5 proxies make them excellent for traffic-intensive data collection.
- Bypass IP Restrictions: These proxies let you access your target websites without worrying about internet blocks. That means you can collect information from any online resource without a hurdle.
- Unlimited Bandwidth: Most SOCKS5 proxy servers have unlimited bandwidth. It allows you to scrape the web smoothly.
- Bypass Geo-Restrictions: You can collect information from target websites across the globe to learn more about your international audience, market trends, customer sentiment, competitor analysis, etc.
- Speed: SOCKS5 proxies are faster than their alternatives, VPNs. Since they do not encrypt traffic, they allow faster speeds and more reliable connections.
Best Use Case
SOCKS5 proxies are best suited for data collection from geo-restricted websites. They work much better than VPNs in terms of speed, performance, and reliability.
Plus, they offer better anonymity since they mask your IP address instead of altering it as a VPN does.
Rotating Residential Proxies
Proxies may come from residential devices or data centers. The former type of proxy is faster and less likely to be detected by the target website.
What Makes Rotating Residential Proxies Suitable for Data Gathering?
Rotating residential proxies have two perks. One, they rotate IP addresses at regular intervals. In addition, they come from residential users. Here’s why they’re great for data gathering.
- IP Rotation: Many websites have anti-scraping measures that include detecting IPs that send requests too frequently to be coming from human users. By rotating IP addresses, rotating residential proxies simulate a human user’s behavior.
- Anonymity: Residential proxies are highly anonymous since they route traffic through residential IP addresses.
- Distributed Network: Rotating residential proxies have a network of residential devices, including mobile phones and computers. The distributed network allows you to collect data from multiple countries and regions easily.
- Scalability: Since rotating residential proxies have a large proxy pool, you won’t run out of IP addresses to switch between. The scalability of these proxies lets you scrape for extended periods without exhausting the proxy pool.
Best Use Case
Rotating residential proxies are an excellent choice for web scraping. Whether you want to scrape your competitor’s e-commerce site or every financial website on the top three pages of Google to identify market trends, these proxies won’t disappoint.
HTTPS (SSL) Proxies
HTTPS (SSL) proxies are a secured version of the HTTPS proxies. When you use an HTTPS (SSL) proxy to send a search request, it doesn’t go directly to the destination server. Instead, it goes to the proxy server.
The proxy server then initiates an HTTPS connection with the target website’s server on your behalf. It helps maintain the confidentiality and security of the transmitted data.
What Makes HTTPS (SSL) Proxies Suitable for Data Gathering?
The security that comes with HTTPS (SSL) proxies makes them one of the most stable and superior proxy types found on the market.
Best Use Case
HTTPS proxies can provide access control mechanisms, allowing users to bypass geographical restrictions, content filters, or firewall rules that may prevent access to certain websites or resources. Moreover, this is particularly useful when gathering public data from websites that may be restricted or blocked in specific regions.
Conclusion on Superior Proxy Types
Data gathering has become the need of the hour, especially with machine learning using heaps of data for facilitating decision-making. The three proxies mentioned in this guide can streamline extensive data gathering for personal and business use.
Petr is a serial tech entrepreneur and the CEO of Apro Software, a machine learning company. Whenever he’s not blogging about technology for itechgyan.com or softwarebattle.com, Petr enjoys playing sports and going to the movies. He’s also deeply interested in mediation, Buddhism and biohacking.